It is occasionally necessary to attach a pivot member, such as a pull handle, to a piece of sheet metal. There are various methods for achieving such attachment. In one such method, a handle can be secured to a piece of sheet metal using separate attachment hardware, such as a threaded fastener that threads into a nut that has been press fit into or otherwise attached to the sheet metal.
Although the use of such attachment hardware is acceptable in some applications, it may not be in others. For example, in a limited clearance application, in which the handle must be very thin due to lack of space, there simply may not be space for a nut. In such circumstances, the handle can instead be attached to the sheet metal using a swaging process. In such a process, a post is extruded from the sheet metal so as to extend from a top surface of the sheet metal. The handle can then be placed over the post and the post can be swaged down on top of the handle to secure the handle to the sheet metal.
While such a solution results in a low profile assembly, it also typically results in a handle that is either too tight or too loose due to difficulty in controlling the swaging process. In addition, the handle may bind in certain angular positions during use, resulting in a handle that cannot be smoothly operated. Although the handle may be functional in such situations, it may create the perception of poor quality for the user.